That's my coming out..
All my life.. I've been struggling with who I was.
All my life... I hated my name.
This name my parents chose with love wasn't mine.
I never really understood why I felt that way, but I did.
It wasn't my name, it didn't fit.
To the point that I wasn't able to get out there and meet new people because I knew I would have to introduce myself, thus say my name, and I couldn't.
I felt like throwing up every time I had to say it.
I had no social life because of it, and when I learned that you could actually legally change your name, it was a revelation and probably what kept me from killing myself eventually, I'm sure!
I was angry. Angry at the world. An angry person.
I changed my name 5 years ago.
From this moment on, I wasn't struggling anymore when meeting other people, I could say my name out loud, it saved me.
But there was something else...
All my life... I hated what I looked like.
I found myself ugly.
I was kind of a tomboy when I was a teenager and I was fine with it.
Never was girly, really.
Never really wanted to be girly per se, but...
I wasn't a pretty girl.
And that hurt a lot. I wanted to be a pretty girl.
But I couldn't stand my face.
You know how most people who think they're ugly, when they look back at what they looked like when they were young, they are like “Aww I was super cute, how come didn't I see it back then?”
Well me, when I look at myself when I was younger... I actually find myself uglier than am I now.
All I can see is... a little someone who is trying so hard to fit in.
To be like other girls.
Not necessarily girly and stuff, like I said, I was tomboy and fine with it, anyway the “girly-bimbo” style, never was attracted to it, so that's not what I wanted to be.
I just wanted to be a pretty girl!
But I wasn't.
I saw myself as hideous, and it hurt a lot.
I tried to wear make up, but it felt very wrong. It felt like if I was a circus clown @_@
For many years, I thought I was suffering from BDD.
Body dysmorphic disorder. Basically, imagined ugliness.
Obsessing with real or imaginary flaws, to the point that one cannot have a normal social and love life because they feel so ugly and full of flaws and are never satisfied with out they look.
Since how I looked made me suffer that much, that I couldn't see what was wrong with my face but just couldn't stand it (a bit like my name) I thought I might suffer from it.
But I wasn't obsess with flaws... didn't have social anxiety...
It rang a bell that it could maybe not be BDD....
But for now, it was easier to deal with, and to explain to people, since I could put a name on what I was struggling with.
No, I'm not crazy, I only have a disorder.
I couldn't look at myself.. like I couldn't say my name...
Years passed, I built myself into a lovable human being. Zen, wise, generous, funny, cheerful, childish :)
I've become awesome inside (despite a difficult 10 years long relationship...)
I became someone I really love :)
But still... what I looked like..
The difficult part was that I couldn't explain precisely what was wrong with my face.
I just couldn't look at myself, I had break downs because I felt so ugly and fat and hated what I looked like and... Damn would I ever be a pretty girl??
Even my voice wasn't a girl's voice... I hated my voice because it sounded to much.. neutral...
At the same time, I built myself an nice social life, was meeting lots of people..
And I was hurt a lot by the girls around me.
During the last few years, I had to realize I wasn't like the other girls... Which was awesome, by the way! Because I found the girls to be mean, hypocrites, drama queen, saying something, meaning another... A guy will punch you in the face. A girl will destroy your entire life.
I found myself hanging out with guys instead. They liked me, and they wouldn't destroy my life.
I wasn't like the other girls... Of course, those are stereotypes, but I believe that stereotypes are there for a reasons. There's no smoke without fire.
I didn't get along with girls, and even those who would tell me they don't make drama or are not emotionally unstable, turned out to make drama and be emotionally unstable.
Anyway.. long story short, few years ago, I started telling people “I'm not like the other girls”... and it became, in the last few months, “... I'm not a girl....”
I was talking about gender identity with my lover who's Gender Fluid and I came to the realization..
I was officially not a girl.
Not a girl, not a guy.
And nothing in between. Genderless.
I now go by the zie/zir or zie/hir/hir/hirs/hirself pronouns.
The final straw was last week, when a female friend of my lover's who made drama because she was upset, being judgmental towards me. It hurt me SO MUCH.
She wasn't even my friend, more of an acquaintance, but still, I was crushed inside by what she said.
From this day on, I told my lover “I seriously never want to be called a girl anymore!!!”
I was rejecting my gender, disowning it. Forever.
Then yesterday I spent like half an hour here, looking at stuff hashtagged #genderqueer and the people I saw... I mean, I've been attracted to androgynous people for years, but I was looking at those people and... I found them so pretty and awesome and... crazy hair... piercings... tattoos... like me...
and their faces.... like.... mine o_O
Wait a second.... so all my life.... I wasn't born to be a girl... ?
I was genderless? And that's why I hated myself that much? Trying to be a girl when in fact, I wasn't?
The reason why I felt my name wasn't mine... it was a girl's name... but I wasn't a girl!...
I just didn't know...
I'm not a pretty girl...
But when I look at myself now.. I see that I look just as awesome as the other genderqueers people...
I'm not a pretty girl because I AM NOT A GIRL!!!!
OMG... all those years... lost... hating what I looked like.. being angry.. feeling like shit....
I wasn't suffering from BDD... I was just a genderless person stuck in a female body, trying to fit in.. Gender dysphoria...
Now... I have to re-program myself and start being truly happy with who I am :) I still have work to do, but I feel I'm almost to the finish line now!
I have to get used to look at myself NOT as a girl and see that I'm just like all the other queergender, not uglier!
Stop thinking that I have to look like a girl to people.. stop thinking that they will expect me to be a girl..
Get rid of that “severe” look on my face and SHINE!!
And I didn't know back then.. but the name I chose, is actually unisex :)
yousharknotpass
gummygunk
theartofmadeline
vaporwave
stormborns
